17 posts tagged “capitalism”

BSGfrack

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A thought occurred to me when I came across an article promoting the ‘car of the future’. 

Hmm…I thought.  Are they telling us what the future holds or they circumscribing our vision of the future in consumerist terms?

We hear about ‘next gen’ games, the ‘car of the future’, a ‘new world order’ that we must head toward from our present position.   We watch the new BSG – Battlestar Galactica – and are basically told that what we are used to here is what is far across the universe.  ‘What the f*ck’ is ‘What the frack’ deep in the ocean of space.  Capitalism, American accent, brash and brawn, everything that is similar to this civilisation is the same over yonder where no hubble telescopic vision has ever ventured.  The genders may have changed - the current 'female' Starbuck is a more masculine version of the original 'male' character - the props may be different, the ‘terrorists’ may be in shiny metal, but the underlying attitude and character is still in the character of all that you’ve ever been led to know….and hence the perspectival paradigm through which you’ve learnt to make sense of reality remains as intact as the pyramidal pile of rocks in Giza. 

What the frack!

Is not the only possible reaction in the face of something surprising or distasteful.  How about a ‘hmm’, that is incited by a deeply thoughtful or philosophical mind.   I remember watching Ted Danson in Gulliver’s Travels a couple of decades ago (I think), and it helped me imagine more than the present ‘modern’ milieu enabled me to.  What’s happened to ‘sci-fi’? 

What I see is the attempt to incorporate the human imagination, as opposed to pushing it beyond current perspectival boundaries. 

We are in the final days of a modernity of the elite’s making.   Be afraid.  And try to do so in ways that you’ve not been taught to be afraid.  And do something about it in ways that you’ve yet to be taught to imagine.

BSGamerica

'Totalitarian' is a function of your impending degeneration, or regeneration,

Not its conclusion,

Which is called 'Democracy'.

Betwixt, you will find the midwife, The Coping Mechanism.

The question humanity will have to ask is,

would it have Coped itself into corner,

or out of it.

It is to be expected that the masses will be averse to any threat against the maintenance of their idea of democracy.  It is, after all, the stage upon which their socialised idea of the self is expressed and realised, or at least, within which they may harbor hopes that it may be expressed and realised. 

But the current appreciation of the idea of democracy is not dependent on what it is, but how it was brought about.  At best, it was brought about through the education of a largely ‘uneducated’ mass whose support had been garnered by the mobilization of their efforts against a ‘foreign’ power.  At worst, it was brought about by an authoritarianism not unlike that championed by the Chinese emperor, Qin Shih Huang Ti, where all oppositional or counterpositional thought was silenced and books burnt.  We see similar events in the history of the United States of America in the persecutions of anarchists and communists, and the witch hunts of the McCarthy era.  There were many such events and even worse ones where strikers were gunned down throughout the western world in the face of capitalist refusal to lower their profit margin.

What were these but the authoritarian (political) and totalitarian (educational) hand required to guide the errant child toward the internalisation of perspectives that would ‘be the best for her/is future’.  To keep her silent long enough so that her offspring would be born into a world where there is little or no counterfactual thinking or ‘second guessing’ the naturalness of the status quo.  Some say that the progression of society moves from preoccupation with financial concerns to leisure.  The first or so generations concern themselves with keeping financially afloat, or ‘making ends meet’.  The following generations, living off the hard work of their parents, go into education and leisure, or not having been thus endowed, onto disengagement and delinquence.  But this is just another way of saying that society moves from the quelling of counterpositional thought to taking the status quo as natural simply because they’ve been taught to know or appreciate no better or otherwise.

The point here is that the so-called democracies that people enjoy is not the realisation of an archetypal or perfect democracy, but rather of a democracy that has a goodness-of-fit with a people created through the dual process of authoritarianism and totalitarianism.  And once this process is complete, through the successful mass internalisation of the perspectives founding the new system, the introduction of ‘democracy’.  When people criticise authoritarian systems in other parts of the world, they do not in them recognise their own evolution as a society.  They do not realise that such authoritarian systems are attempting to bring about the elevation or diminution of the people so that a goodness-of-fit may be brought about between the system and the people.  All they see is an authoritarianism which they have no memory of simply because they were yet to be born.  Of course they may argue that the authoritarianism they perceive in other countries are to abhorred because it does not develop the inhabitants of those countries to be similar to one’s own relatively enlightened ones.  But what they fail to realise is that they themselves have been underdeveloped, albeit to a lesser degree, and have taken their condition as preferable and therefore good.  They too have discounted their own authoritarian pasts and have ‘progressed’ to coping and expressing their well-socialised selves.  For what is the second-hand experience of the past when one has first-hand experience living with the present system where much of the conflicts have been resolved by past concessions and the institution of mechanisms throughout society that ensures that the propensity to appreciate or want more remains dormant within their appropriately socialised personas.

Authoritarianisms are not to be judged by their being authoritarian, but the purpose or goal of authoritarianism.  The movement from one system to another will generally create conflict due to the masses’ penchant for the familiar and insecurity-induced resistance, or due to their recognition of the evils of the new system.  Some say that democracy will always be the way to go.  But the reason why the systems of the past fell, amongst others, was the absence of democracy.  Listen.  Iniquity finds perpetuation in democracy, even as democracy can be used to undermine iniquity.  Democracy must not be appreciated only for itself, but for the phase of societal development that it is introduced.  Democracy, when introduced at various times can actually serve to perpetuate inequality.  When everyone is a part of a ‘scam’, it will cease to be perceived as such.  Advancing democracy at the wrong time can actually serve to incorporate dissent.  For instance, the enfranchisement of women was seen as a major achievement by women and humanity thereafter.  But was it?  No.  What actually happened was that women were incorporated into a male ethos.  Women, in effect, became more like men.  It was indeed a paradoxical event where on the one hand women sought to be included, whilst on the other, they were included within a system that thrived on the selfsame spirit of exclusivity that subjugated them.  What a paradox!  I’ve often suspected that the devil reigns via paradoxes as humanity, too self-absorbed in the ‘here and now’, will be disabled from seeing beyond the self. 

If authoritarian systems fall, it is usually because the goodness-of-fit between a new system and the type of humanity required to accept it is unrealistic.  For instance, authoritarians who expect people to accept starvation so that they can maintain a thus unrealistic profit and power margin will inevitably fail.  But where, with the ‘oppositional’ aid of a ‘left’, they can be prodded to give more and take less to the point that it becomes acceptable.  At such a point, what I term, the Principle of Relative Relief, will be activated and the people can appreciate the more of today simply because it is better than yesterday. 

But the purpose of this essay is not to say that authoritarian systems are all equal.  The point here is that the so-called democracies of today may be fallacies that are perpetuated simply because the people have had various and positive parts of their personalities culled or anaesthetized to the point that they can view it as ‘democracy’ in itself. 

The final check which people can perform in an effort to scrutinize the reality of a ‘democracy’, is this.  To what degree does it abide by the principle that the maximal development of all delivers the maximal development of the individual, and vice versa.  You will find that, hitherto, to date, the maximal inclusion of all has actually served to compromise the movement to maximally develop all.  Everyone sought to be included in hell, and in the course of it, sought little more than to survive it’s flames or ascend to its upper echelons atop the heads of others, and hence, failed to extinguish it.

[Much Thanks to 'iblack' of youtube for the above videos]

Systemic Perpetuation and the Expressive Mechanism

The perpetuation of a socio-economic status quo is to a significant degree effected when, amongst others, the recuperative and compensatory mechanisms that help a person cope with the system moves on to becoming an expressive mechanism.  That is when a significant part of both the recuperative and compensatory mechanism is not perceived to be as such, but as a natural expressive part of what one wants to do. 

Let’s imagine a situation where a person who has just entered the innocuous-sounding, ‘workforce’, is, at the end of a tiring week, invited to the local public house by her colleagues.  She may not have had a penchant for such a pastime in the past, but gradually gets used to and even looks forward to this event at the end of every week.  This is a simple illustration of the recuperative mechanism evolving into an expressive one.  That is when one might engage in this activity not because one wants to, but by it serving as a recuperative device after a week’s work.  Now let’s imagine a group of people whom have had impressed upon them that passion cannot be expressed in more intellectual, empathetic, or activistic ways without dire consequences.  Over time, they turn to gastronomic pastimes and make an evening out of it on a frequent basis.  They rarely exhibit such passionate indulgence in any other way except in those that do not invite governmental scrutiny.  Food, and long-drawn dinners, where conversation, if any, is centred on the trivial, may indicate the evolution of a compensatory pastime into an expressive one over the course of one’s life or generations.  We could say that the coping mechanism counters the confrontational propensity amongst humans.  To indulge in the former, is to compromise the latter.  And over time, the latter can die out altogether.  This is how, for instance, many in ‘Asian’ ‘Democracies’ may over time begin to view ‘freedom’ as the ability to choose between one trivial pastime and another, as opposed to the freedom to express and confront.  This is also evidenced in 2000 years of Chinese history.

What the above illustrates is the workings of the coping mechanism – within which I include sub-components such as the compensatory, recuperative and expressive mechanisms.  It aids in rendering a particular phenomena bearable, and with the passage of time and practice, comes across as an activity motivated by one’s desire to engage in it as opposed to one’s doing so because a preferred alternative is forbidden.  The point here is that when a recuperative or compensatory activity moves on to becoming an expressive one, that is, when the person feels naturally inclined to engage in it, that is when the activity that incited it becomes reinforced as natural and immutable.

Culture as a Coping Mechanism

Now let’s broaden our imaginary horizon.  Let’s imagine a culture which comprises much superstition; lucky charms and numbers; where lotteries and gambling is pervasive; where eating and shopping is a national pastime; etc.  This indicates that the state is either technologically backward as in medieval or classical times, or that these are compensatory and recuperative activities within a politically repressive environment that has evolved into expressive ones in order to cope with the said politically repressive environ.  When this evolution takes place, the system is perpetuated and naturalised in the eyes of the masses under its watchful auspices.

And we also have a relatively inverse scenario where the above variables are largely absent.  We could say that the refusal of the people to engage in these compensatory and recuperative activities in the face of a politically repressive government caused the disappearance of much compensatory and recuperative pastimes, or its retardation.

Different Phases of the Coping Mechanism

The coping mechanism in the national milieu goes through different phases.  For instance, if one has a memory of an alternative milieu and is partial to it, then there is a conflict between her memory of how things were vs. how things are.  However, this conflict between what was and is could dissipate with the 2^nd generation who cannot avail themselves of such memories to experience the said conflict.  However, if conditions are intolerable, then such memories are inconsequential and the coping mechanism would be displaced with confrontation.  I find the history of China most relevant in understanding this.  For instance, there was relatively greater intellectual and political freedom in the Chou era prior to the Qin.  With the following Qin era, and the harsh implementation of one school of thought and legalist principles, the people revolted and the Qin fell in 50 years.  However, with the following dynasties that sought to lower the harshness of the Qin, the people grew accustomed to it, and eventually could take Qin-style harshness.  But the point here is that the midwife that delivers a people from one system to another, and which naturalises the status quo is the Coping Mechanism, and the evolution of the compensatory and recuperative sub-components into an expressive one which is now known as ‘Chinese culture’.  When a people identify strongly with it, they themselves become its guardians and stewards protecting it from ‘foreign’ influences and even influences from an alternative Chinese past – such as that of the Chou era.

Whether in a personal or cultural sphere, I’ve always been acutely aware, and most wary, of the potency of the Coping Mechanism in readying myself, or any group of people, to put up with that which they might otherwise not countenance.  This is especially so where such ‘coping’ leads to underdevelopment at a personal level, or, for instance, ‘Asian’ ‘Democracies’, at a macro level. 

How do we determine if our so-called ‘natural’ inclinations are compensatory and recuperative as a prelude to turning ‘expressive’.  Counterfactual thought is most helpful in this.  I just imagine what I would have done given a completely different cultural experience, or greater control over my destiny.  If I cannot avail of personal memories of better or alternative times, there are always history books, philosophy, and the cultural experiences of other peoples.  The moment I reject it with a, ‘they are they and I am I, so why should I challenge my notion of my individuality’, I immediately take it as my failure to confront and see it as a desire to take the seemingly simple route of compensation and recuperation.  We must also keep in mind that the movement from compensation and recuperation might have taken place even a 1000 years before we were born, and we are led to believe that we are doing what we want because we are socialised, from birth, into an environment where it has become an expressive culture.  In this case, I would simply ask myself if my adhering to ‘my culture’ can be verified to make the most of potentials that I’ve yet to even imagine or aspire to, but which are possibilities, or which may be currently or historically expressed by those practicing other cultures.  I impose upon myself this rule, ‘familiarity is the prime reason to venture forth into what one is unfamiliar with’.

What does this mean for Activists?

Activists, upon a top-down initiation of a system of thought, have to race against time.  Time is of the essence.  The coping mechanism will be immediately activated amongst the people as the struggle for self-survival and survival of the family will tend to supersede all considerations.  Whilst at the initial stage, activists will have the luxury of just confronting the government. However, after 2 or 3 generations, and especially where there is increasing ‘affluence’ – a word that can have so many alternative meanings but which would be taken to refer to just the basics in terms of financial well-being and the ability to conform to the latest trends – taking the government to task would have to be complemented with assiduous scrutiny of the culture which the people will take as natural and a confrontation they might take as ‘racist’, ‘cultural supremacism’, or ‘anti-american/etc’.  At this stage, political gains will be severely hampered by the perspectival losses of the masses through entrenched cultural perspectives that will become even more resilient.   This is one of the reasons, for instance, why the Tiananmen square massacre saw the bulk of the Chinese population turning the apathetic cheek.  The activists were a couple of thousand years late – where their Indian counterparts have never ceased challenging their culture and authorities from way before the Christ was born.  That is why, for instance, the British and American government could still go into Afghanistan despite the resistence of a sizeable proportion of their respective populations.  There was something in the cultural milieu that was disabling them all from saying an effective ‘no’ to the government.  Certain cultural factors has been there for quite some time but which had been deemed innocuous due to the passage of time and practice.  At such times, true activists will stand a chance of becoming social pariahs as their call for through change can be seen as culturally-intolerant and the people themselves will stand between them and the government.  And that is when activism will become incorporated and serve as mere tweakers of a system as opposed to the pioneers of a new perspectival milieu.

Yes indeed!  Intellectual Property must be respected.  Say I now, and always.   But without Intellectual Propriety, respect is always compromised and circumscribed by the proscriptions immediately and logically placed by the absence of the said Propriety.

propriety

n. (pl. proprieties) correctness concerning standards of behaviour or morals.  (proprieties) the details or rules of conventionally accepted behaviour.  appropriateness; rightness.

– ORIGIN ME: from OFr. propriete, from L. proprietas (see property).

Intellectual Propriety and Self-interest

‘Propriety’ takes on different meanings in different systems.  We could say the ‘propriety’ is a system-constructed phenomenon that generally serves to maintain the system.  We could even say that, hitherto, all systems have sought to bring out the worst in humanity for the sake of profit and power for the few, and then devised myriad and multifarious mechanisms to ensure that it is kept on a leash to prevent the system from imploding. 

Within a system that promotes self-interest over collective interest; apathy as opposed to unfettered empathy; education for economic utility as opposed to generic astuteness; ‘propriety’ takes on its meaning given what is considered the norm from a self-centred perspective as opposed to a logical one.  Hence, ‘logic’ is understood through a paradigm that is self-centred.  Information not conducive to the elevation of the self over others, and at the expense of others, is discounted reflexively.  This is exacerbated by the culture that is gradually formed within such a perspectival state of affairs as it will cleansed of those elements that forces one to reflect on contradictory factors longer than it takes to evict them from thought.

Putting it simply, in an alternative system, Intellectual Property will be determined by an Intellectual Propriety that takes on board all relevant contributors and conduits via which an idea is formed.  ‘Relevance’ is not what it is to you, but what it is despite what you know.  For this, the subconscious will cease to be a prison wherein the masses confine information that contradicts the system-imposed propensity to view the self as the first cause of ideas.  In other words, we will reflexively acknowledge that the self is never the first cause of an idea, but a translator, a clearing house, a machine that readjusts the combination of various pieces of data that is acquired from every idea that has been consciously and subconsciously encountered.

In other words, the human subconscious will be freed to not tyrannously impose control over the conscious mind, and cause it to discount information not serving the self-interest, but to be a salient part of it.  And upon the knowledge of the sources of your ideas, Intellectual Property will melt away as an objectively practiced Intellectual Propriety maintains an equilibrium between what you know to be true and what is.

Intellectual Propriety and the Subconscious Mind

The subconscious mind is not a given.  It is socially constructed realm that exists because of our failure to objectively include within our understanding of things all that has to be understood, and seek to know all that can be known about the self and all that impacts upon it.  The subconscious mind exists, also, because of our failure to be honest with ourselves and access those yet-to-be created cultures that enables us to do so.  And within a milieu wherein the self is held up over and against all others, information has to be discounted in order to war successfully against all and become a relative ‘success’.  These, in part, comprise the seemingly unbridgeable chasm that divides the conscious mind from the subconscious. 

When we study the relevant sciences, we will gradually become more aware of the myriad and multifarious variables that go into creating the self and all the ideas the self has hitherto mistaken itself as being the ‘first cause’.  We will realise that all that we feel, think, and produce is a result of variables that we cannot and will not recognise till the chasm that divides the conscious mind from the subconscious is filled with knowledge, humility, and empathy.  It is only then that the chasm disappears and the conscious and subconscious mind is united in consciousness.   

It is then that we will realise that we owe to far more for what we do, think and feel that, at present, the self-centred mind can or would be willing to discern or fathom.  We will realise that we owe sources, hitherto imprisoned, exploited and mined in our subconscious, for everything that we are.  Sources that extend beyond our own time and space.  Sources that embed themselves in the food that we eat, the company we keep, in the tools we utilise, the words of writers, lyrics of singers, acts of entertainers, facial expressions, the shapes and structures comprising the shapes and structures not discernible by the conscious eye, the myriad colours and features comprising the entirety of human-induced and natural phenomena.  We will be overwhelmed by these contributors and conduits via which we become all that we are, that we will feel ashamed to claim Intellectual Property knowing full well that it is born of abject perspectival Impropriety.  

Intellectual Impropriety

The truth is, our productions are little more than manifestations and reformulations of the works of other contributors ushered into both the conscious and unconscious mind.  We only give credit to those we discern within the conscious mind that has been underdeveloped to discount enough information to enable our aspiration to outdo and undo others.  And the amount we are paid, or hope to be paid, imposes a constraint on how many contributors we can pay or accord credit whilst being able to pay ourselves enough to either keep financially afloat or above the rest of the masses.  In truth, we are not allowed to afford the luxury of being objectively and financially grateful to all the sources that contribute to ‘our’ productions. Thus, the human vision is narrowed, and thus, self-interest is reinforced.

And within the status quo, IP is protected by directing the attention of the masses to those who’ve yet to profit from it – in other words, the masses themselves.  In this, an institutional iniquity – IP – is protected via an attempt to address the consequences of it that in turn serves to maintain the source of it.  For to remove the circular ‘C’ from our works is to condemn ourselves to starvation or oblivion.  In other words, on the one hand, I’m forced to maintain the ‘c’ in my own productions because I’ve yet to make it, and thus unwittingly perpetuate the ‘c’ so that those whom have ‘made it’, may make more.

IP, in its current form, cannot survive without II.  They are united symbiotically.  And as long as the self wars with all its counterparts competitively in a do-or-starve situation, it will lead to the discounting of information that informs us that credit is owed to far more we can afford to owe, whilst subconsciously gleaning information from these very sources.

What is the value of such demonstrations or ‘parades’?

On the one hand, the value of such events lies in its serving to expose the public to alternative streams of thought.  So long as the public do not discount it on the basis of its being unfamiliar, they, whether in opposition or support, will be afforded the opportunity to refine, reinforce, or revise their own standpoint.

Secondly, the value of such events lies in the salience of the event.  Flags, numerous attendants, sound, music, different ethnic groups, genders, ages, etc.  Such a value lies in the value people tend to place on that which is amplified through these numerous features as opposed to that which is relatively minimalist.

But what I deem to be of the greatest significance is its challenge to what I term, the perspectival infrastructure.  I have referred to this quite a few times in past essays and I will elaborate upon it here.

The perspectival infrastructure refers to everything that comprises sensed reality and which impact on both the conscious and subconscious mind.  The kind of physical structures we are surrounded by; the kind of conversations we overhear or engage in; the presence or absence of alternative symbolism such as political posters, flags, badges, graffiti; the kind of buildings that are given the greatest prominence; the absence or presence of a great variety of differences be it in fashion, ethnicity, cultures, religions, languages, etc; the shapes of buildings, i.e. angular vs fluid; the degree to which one type of phenomena is counterposed or complemented by another; and so on and so forth.  These determine to a significant degree if and when we think out of the box, and if and when we do so, what directions and velocity it takes. 

I have found, in the study of history, architecture, philosophy, the environment, music, art, etc, that those states that have the most variable perspectival infrastructure also tend to produce the most vibrant, passionate and creative minds.  It indicates a perspectival infrastructure in spectral flux as opposed to those which are relatively unidirectional.  In this, I find, besides India, the United Kingdom to have much perspectival spectral-like infrastructural flux.  Through such parades, amongst others, the mind is thus rendered relatively hyperactive and open to new ideas and change.  And the degree to which counterpositional movements such as the socialist/anarchist movement in the United Kingdom expropriate, even if it is for a day, the dominant capitalist perspectival infrastructure, can determine the degree to which such nations always totter on the precipice of change.  And where such empathetic movements expropriate the perspectival infrastructure, it can lead people to view the perspectival infrastructure and its physical counterpart as something that can be changed in, or wanting in content.  

And this is an important point,

The associational value between the physical infrastructure and the dominant capitalist meaning attributed to in the course of common and daily usage and experience of these structures is weakened.  People stand a higher chance of being able to wonder about the degree to which empathy is practiced within such milieux.  They do not, generally, become a part of the structure themselves as do people in countries where the perspectival infrastructure has its meanings attributed and maintained by the force of a singular minded and apathetic state.

So, even though I’m not there with my British compatriots – we may not occupy the selfsame national region, but certainly a selfsame perspectival region – I am one with them in sight and spirit.  Hopefully, I will be able to be there next year.

postscript: Our control of the perspectival infrastructure is minimal, but its subconscious effect on our own perspectives on things can be countered to a significant degree by the way we order our own personal space.  The kind of symbolism we surround ourselves with in our own homes, fashions, etc; the way we order our homes; the way we keep the mind in order through something as simple as a well-ordered arrangement of our television and stereo remote controls; providing variation through the arrangement of the colours of our walls, infusing our environment with vibrance, order, youthfulness, ideology, etc, etc, can go a long way in helping us withstand the subconscious impact of a perspectival infrastructure that is, to a significant degree, dominated by the prevailing perspective of the day. (I will elaborate on this further in a future article)

Most certainly!  Freedoms are always circumscribed within any system.  It the evolution of the individual within the system and her/is incorporation within it that leads her/im to believe they are not circumscribed.  In other words, when certain propensities are weeded out of a personality, the origin of various desires are closed.  It is then that freedom is perceived to be enjoyed within a system. 

However, within this alternative system that I speak of, the circumscription of freedom will be structured to allow the maximal development of one and all without compromising either of the preceding beyond an equilibrium that maintains and nourishes the midwife that delivers it, Equality.  An equality that does not inhibit one’s access to all the resources necessary for the maximal development of oneself.  Hence, inheritance will not be allowed.  By ‘inheritance’, I mean the inheritance of poverty.  I mean the inheritance of helplessness.  I mean the inheritance of envy and greed.  I mean the inheritance of the motivational debility that it takes to keep millions in drunken and disaffected stupor via drinks or drugs.  The inheritance of that kind of disenfranchisement and anger that it takes to channel one’s passion and vibrance toward ‘gangbanging’.  The inheritance of the helpless mindset that it takes to say, 'what's the point of making an effort, or getting involved'.  In fact, we will learn about the value of inheritance from the wealthy and royalty.  They are part of the great experiment that supplies us with the scientific proof that our sense of self-efficacy is aided most significantly by a sense that we can be all that we want to be.  Behind every rags-to-riches story lie millions whom have tried even harder but whom have failed to achieve.  Behind every rags-to-riches story lie even more who could have done more if they were not undermotivated by their condition and therefore accessed the 'easy way out' - just as their counterparts amongst the privileged made their way up because it was a relatively 'easy way up'.  If we do not all recognise the motivational resources that come with affluence, why do we hanker after it?  And these are the very hypocrites who pour scorn on those who have not made more of themselves for being deprived of that which they themselves recognise and pursue for its motivational value.

To date, the imaginative faculty of humanity and sense of self-efficacy is determined by those whom are most self-efficaciously endowed.  In other words, the imagination of billions is narrowed down the path of the profit desiring imaginative faculties of the corporations, ‘celebrities’, and governments.  What a waste of imaginative resources.  Deprive a people of wealth, and you have their imaginative potentials by the nether regions.  I’ve seen whole culturally disparate continents go to imaginative waste because of this.  I’ve seen whole ghettos of passion and vibrance expressed through the barrel of a gun or down the narrow noose of a needle.  What a waste.  What a waste. 

I also reject the inheritance of ‘genes’ whereby we justify what we are simply on the basis of our genetic past.  This is utter nonsense and abjectly unscientific.  Those whom justify what they are on the basis of what they were genetically, forget that the construction of the present self via the genetic accomplishments of the past is preceded by what they actually did and thought or were allowed to do and think.  Our genetic makeup is a product of our actions.  Thus, the genetic makeup of our future selves is dependent on our thoughtful actions of the present.  Who is to determine what are to be our ‘thoughtful actions’?  You are.  Not the desire to couch yourself in a familiar past through genetic justification, but a desire to imagine yourself to be more and do what it takes to be more despite the genetically-enhanced predisposition of your predecessors.

So indeed.  Freedom will be circumscribed.  The freedom to exploit, to abuse, to use, to be apathetic, to be politically nonchalant, to not form parties to improve the system, to not have democracy within the auspices of equality, to not love thy neighbor as thyself and afford her/im the rights which everyone desires to make the most of oneself with an imaginative faculty uncircumscribed by the unseen hand of ‘demand and supply’ or the privilieged few. 

That is the freedom I circumscribe.

The Freedom that I Subscribe To

The freedom to love without cost or consequence.  The freedom to empathise without worrying about your being incarcerated for it.  The freedom to not always desire to take refuge in the familiar.  The freedom to evict the slothful mind so that we will constantly think of advancing ourselves for the sake of all, and all, for the sake of the one.  Is it a sin to desire this?  The greatest of all freedoms is the freedom to Empathise.  This is something we have yet to fully express due to a myriad of inhibitory factors such as the borders of the nation-state informing us that empathy stops at the checkpoint; competition that cannot deliver more to one unless it delivers less to another; our inability to love our neighbor as we would ourselves lest it leads to an empty pantry in our own homes……  How much more can humanity achieve if our constitution is founded on empathy.  I say to you, imagine the furthest, and multiply it by infinity.   We will all be producing ideas in all directions beyond all that we can currently imagine whilst abiding by the tyrannous and highly narrow directives of 'demand and supply'  - which is nothing more than pandering to an increasingly reduced humanity given the conditions under which they exist.  That is the greatest of untried experiments.  And our exponential loss, for not embarking on it, is by the millisecond.

What is the freedom that you people think you have and laud if that which occupies the core of humanity, Empathy, is not given free reign over your impulses.  What is this tyranny that grips this core that you are so fond of calling freedom.  What is the greatness that can be expected of a 'humanity' that thrives on apathy.  You measure it by observable gains, whilst I measure it by discernible loss.  It is nothing more than a bestial freedom. 

I am human.  I shall overcome.

Amen

It is only the individual who is successfully socialised within a competitive milieu whom is capable of discounting perspectives and arguments by another individual purely on the basis of the other individual not being able to provide answers to all their questions.  This breed of people are accompanied by an infantry of people who make sense of reality by association and replication as opposed to cognition – whom I view as the lumpenproletariat of the intellectual world (intellectual refuse).

The most frequent discounting methods utilised by such people are through the calling of names that have negative associations such as ‘f*cking leftie’, ‘commie’, ‘red’, ‘touble-maker’, ‘complainer’, ‘weirdo’, ‘freak’, etc.  The potential of such words for inhibiting thought on the part of the user is bolstered by false associations forwarded by the media; the individual’s penchant for the familiar and popular; and their thoroughly circumscribed notions of Empathy and Compassion.  This is itself reinforced significantly by a media that presents ‘alternatives’ within the perspectival boundaries of the socio-economic system, i.e. the latest Battlestar Galactica series is a case in point, and a gradually formed culture that perpetuates it.  In a way, we can view such words as hypnotic mnemonics that, upon recitation, immediately causes the individual to react in predetermined ways.  But the best part of such words is not in its hypnotic quality, but in it being unwittingly used for self-hypnosis.  In Zen philosophy, it is said that s/he who pretends to sleep cannot be awakened.  To contextualize this, I would say, s/he who is asleep but confuses the dream of being awake can’t be awoken unless administered a smack across the face – not literally of course.

However, in my experience, the worst are those who question for the purpose of undermining the ideas or the one making a proposition as opposed to discovering the truth in a collaborative fashion.  Their method follows a predictable course.  They will never put together the various principles and points put across to come to a conclusion, answer their own questions, or refine it.  Rather, they will discount these and seek to question till a point that the proposer would be unable to answer their questions.  They will constantly ignore the fact that any work is improved upon by collaboration by different people and across time as no one person can possibly acquire all the knowledge and experience that is required to conclusively dissect, explore and resolve a problem.  But these very people think nothing of keeping up with the latest technological advances and getting the latest ‘windows’, ‘ipods’, ‘mobile phones’, ‘mac software’, etc.  Why don’t they discount the first of any of these products just because it isn’t perfect.  No, that approach is something these cretins utilise when it comes to that which requires thought on their part, or which challenges their idea of what is natural.  I do not entertain such people and usually accord them the respect they deserve. 

It takes a competitive, egoistic and self-centred mindset to discount the idea of a collaborative journey toward the dissection and exploration of an idea as it has been reared to view all others in an antagonistic and competitive fashion.  But this is not to say that they are averse to, or unpracticed, in the idea of collaboration.  For this breed of humanity, the collaborative ability, along with their myriad and multifarious propensities, is utilised generally within the work milieu.  It is there that their diminutive humanity, a humanity which I consider reduced not because they fail to exhibit the imaginative and collaborative potentials of humanity, but because it is only applied within the workspace, is realised and expressed.  All else is compensation and recuperation, be it ‘friendship’, ‘marriage’, ‘family’, etc.  Collaboration is a self-centred venture for such a people.  If they collaborate at all, it is for the sole purpose of self-gratification, come what may to all others.  The self must ‘feel good’ at all costs.  And it is within such a context that the idea of ‘feel good’ takes its meaning.  And it is this that leads them to discount the ideas of those who can’t write a thesis that elucidates on every single variable, interrelationship, correlation, and cost and effect.  For it is only then that every counterpositional thought can be discounted and the self can continue to ‘feel good’ in the familiar and in the false knowledge that they are intelligent human beings. 

In sum, I reiterate

Self-doubt is anathema to those who have been incorporated into a competitive milieu.  On the one hand, to collaborate with another on a counterpositional thought makes them doubt their own intelligence as their immediate past is founded on a belief that is being questioned.  On the other, as I’ve aforementioned, where others are viewed antagonistically at a subconscious level, they will not perceive them as people to collaborate with unless, at best, it is done whilst in antagonistic competition with others for the sake of competition itself, i.e. football matches, Olympics, etc. 

It is this that significantly contributes to the opposition that socialists and activists face.  The system has been internalised by the masses.  Now, it is the masses the activists have to contend with.  This is the price that has to be paid for the quieting concessionary ‘bribes’ accepted by your predecessors.  Such ‘concessionary bribes’ serve as nothing more than an effort by The Powers to buy time so that the latter generations can gradually be incorporated. 

Activists will also have to inquire after the degree to which they too have been incorporated.  Err on the side of caution and assume that you have been incorporated as well.  If you assume that you are on the right side simply because you are ‘opposing’, then you will immediately become a symbiotic part of The Problem.  It could be said that to adapt to a perspectivally-paraplegic people will cause you to crawl,  and that, instead of gradually serving to get them to walk, may actually reinforce their debility and yours as well.  For instance, amongst others, when I see activists utilising ‘celebrities’ to forward laudable causes, I recognise it as nothing more than an unwitting venture to reinforce in the people the kind of ‘lack of objectivity’ that it takes to cause them to regard ‘celebrities’ as viable sources of social change, whilst also founding the basis upon which The Problem emerges.  Do not, like those whom oppose you, seek to believe that you are intelligent human beings so that you can ‘feel good’ in the familiar and so-called oppositional camp.  In this, both camps are guilty of desiring immediate gratification by seeking comforting refuge in the tried-and-tested-to-deliver-too-late approaches of your predecessors. 

Ed

postscript:  I do not want the above statement to be interpreted as a call for violence.  It’s a call for critical introspection.  Violence, like the above, is yet another means via which people might get past thought and onto action.  And in that the past that you seek to counter will be replicated.